Donald Trump Wants to “Speak to Bill Gates About Closing Up the Internet”

Hot on the heels of his statement that Muslims should be prevented from entering the US, Donald Trump has now stated that the Internet should be “closed up” and that he’ll “see Bill Gates” in order to try to make this a reality.

The Republican presidential candidate made the omission during a rally in USS Yorktown in South Carolina, the same rally in which he’d also called for a “complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the country. The entrepreneur/reality show host/potential future POTUS displayed an alarming lack of knowledge in regards to how the Internet actually works, suggesting that Bill Gates is in charge of some kind of fictional button that, when pressed, can shut down the ‘net. However, this is almost as preposterous as Trump being placed in charge of a button which can effectively launch nuclear warfare, only unfortunately much less possible.

Trump spoke of how people are becoming recruited by “ISIS jihadists” via the Internet, claiming in his speech that children are “watching the internet and they want to be masterminds,” adding: “We’re losing a lot of people because of the internet. We have to see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what’s happening. We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that Internet up in some ways. Somebody will say, ‘Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ These are foolish people.” 

As with most stories involving Trump’s run for office, it serves as another reminder of how terrifying it is that he has been allowed to get this far with his campaign, which has thus far centered almost entirely around the billionaire cultivating support by virtue of flagrantly fascist remarks, which Trump tellingly hasn’t even bothered to sugarcoat. 

One thing Trump hasn’t considered, though, is if he were to shut down parts of the Internet, then how would we get to see gems such as this?

Image Credit: Tom Pennington / Getty Images